I BOUND UP a steep set of metal stairs. They’re slippery and dimly lit from a track on the low ceiling.
I’m halfway up when I’m hit by a wave of light-headedness and nausea, and feel my toe slide, causing my leg to collapse underneath me. My knee smacks the edge of a stair. A burst of pain shoots forth from my right patella. I look down and curse my cheap canvas high-tops and their cheap rubberized souls that offer inexpensive-chic—and traction approximating paper plates.
I hear footsteps behind me. I glance back to see Faith.
“You’re hurt. Wait.”
I ignore her and stumble to the top of the stairs.
I’m looking down a long, empty tunnel, ending in the well-lit maw of the subway station. I start running again but with a decided hitch in my step.
At the station entrance, my eyes adjust to the wide-open space, with cathedral-like high ceilings, illuminated by bright light. Very bright. Another wave of nausea, one I can’t suppress. I put my hands on my knees and heave spittle and hot breath.
I stand and focus again on the cavernous station. In front of me, a handful of ticket machines line a distant wall. To my left, stairs lead down the tracks for trains heading to the beach, the direction I wasn’t traveling. To my right, turnstiles provide exit and entrance. Next to them, in a rectangular cage of thick glass that stretches nearly to the ceiling, sits a man in blue cap, gray hair overflowing, sideburns tricking out the sides of his face, eyes turned down, lost in paperwork, or the paper. Oblivious.
There is no drunk or homeless man, or whatever species of man toppled me near the tracks. There are no fellow travelers besides Faith, who I can hear behind me, walking, pausing, walking again.
I hobble to and through the turnstiles. Beyond them, a set of majestic stone stairs leads in and out of the station and promises a much more elegant experience than the underground train service typically provides.
I walk ten yards to the top of the stairs. Outside, I inhale cool air, grateful for it, and peer into the darkness dotted by brake lights, headlights and a stoplight at the corner just to my right. It’s just past 10 P.M., rainy, cold, windy. Vintage Bay Area, but poor conditions for trying to find someone who is trying to slip away in the darkness. There’s an empty bus parked for the night in front of the subway terminal, and a Volvo in the passenger pickup zone; its driver sits behind the wheel mesmerized by whatever is on his smart phone. But there’s no sign of a fleeing jerk.
Maybe he didn’t leave through the exit. Maybe he hobbled down the stairs to the tracks heading the other direction. If so, he probably hopped on the last outbound train. Is there another possibility? A bathroom?
I return to the turnstiles and knock on the glass cage. The blue-capped man takes a deliberate few seconds to look up, communicating his superiority.
“Excuse me. I was attacked—on the inbound platform.”
This perks him up. In his beefy hand, a Snickers. He swallows a bite that causes a hitch in his throat. He lets me back through the turnstiles and we start labored communication through a small opening in the glass cage.
“What happened?” He’s trying to sound interested but projects weariness. He’s still got chocolate and nougat on the tips of his front teeth, the rest of which are yellowed from smoking or practiced disregard of the toothbrush.
“Did someone just come through here? Big guy wearing a leather jacket? He had a beard and maybe a limp.”
“You were mugged?”
Was I mugged? I paw my right front jeans pocket and feel the outline of my phone. My wallet is still in the right back pocket. The urbanite’s reflex.
Not mugged.
“Your bag is open.”
It takes a second for me to realize that he means my backpack. I turn around and see a few papers have scattered on the ground in the station.
Faith, having reappeared, has scooped up several of the straggling sheets. I turn back to the agent.
“Some guy nearly pushed me into the tracks. Can you call the police?”
“Nothing’s missing?” He hates the idea of the bureaucratic time sink involved with reporting a non-mugging.
“You must have surveillance cameras,” Maybe they got a good look at the falling mountain and me.
I turn to Faith, who stands just a few feet away, holding my papers. Part of me is wondering what she’s doing, why she followed me, and where she came from, why she’s wearing a skirt after dark in rainy mid-January.
“You must have seen him, Faith.”
“You should sit down. You look a little green.”
No doubt. It doesn’t take a former medical student to recognize I’ve got a head contusion and maybe a concussion.
“I’m okay. I’ll get it checked.” I strongly suspect I won’t.
“Your backpack has taken a mortal blow. It’s bleeding paper.” She pauses. “Seen him? Who?”
“The guy who toppled me over. You passed him in the tunnel, or he passed you. You each appeared out of nowhere, simultaneously.”
She looks momentarily stricken. “I didn’t get a good look. I’m sorry.”
Even under these circumstances, I am conflicted about whether to press this gorgeous and caring woman, or flirt. I split the difference.
“I’m sorry. I usually don’t interrogate a woman when I first meet her. Usually, it’s cup of coffee, or a beer, maybe dinner, and only then do I start treating her like a witness or suspect.”
She laughs. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” For a millisecond, she lowers her brown eyes and then looks back up. She smiles reassuringly. Her looks carry nuance, texture. I wonder if she’s modeled. I hope not.
“What’s on your sweatshirt? Did you get sick?”
I look down at the stain just above the left shoulder on my gray sweatshirt.
“Or did your baby get sick?” she asks.
What’s with this woman? Does she know something about me?
“I’ve got a nephew,” she explains. “When he was a baby, that’s right about the spot where he liked to press his face when I fed him.”
I look again at the splotch on my shoulder, and feel light-headed again, momentarily unreal. This prescient woman is right. I’ve got feeding casualty on my shoulder. Isaac. My son. I’ll see him again. I manage a smile. “Masticated avocado I bet. From the mouths of babes. Right onto my shoulder.” Note to self: buy stain remover.
“I take it your baby is not in his or her twenties.”
I feel my eyes mist. “Eight months, give or take. He spits up like an Olympian.”
I cannot possibly be connecting with a woman, not under these circumstances, not given my track record in relationships. I’m a romantic Hindenburg: promising takeoff, brief smooth sailing, splat. It’s probably not the time to blurt that out, or disclose my dysfunctional personal life and worldview. I’m no longer with Isaac’s mom, and he’s with her. And I’m far from at peace with the whole thing.
“They’re out of town. Visiting her parents.”
“Who?”
Good job, Nat. Instead of confessing your romantic failings, you mutter non sequiturs. “Never mind.”
“Anyhow,” Faith hands me the papers she’s gathered. “I’ve got to catch a cab and get home.”
“Wait. Please.” I’m coursing with a dozen questions, chiefly: What did Faith see? I ask her if she can spare five more minutes to help me deconstruct what happened on the platform. She acquiesces, with a light flavor of impatience, denoted by fidgeting fingers and diminished eye contact. She tells me that she bought a single-ride fare, made a quick phone call, then headed down to the tracks to get the K. When she arrived, she saw the huge guy fall down towards me. She couldn’t tell if it was deliberate or not, but she could tell it was a major impact. “He squished you,” she says.
It’s not particularly helpful. And I’m definitely testing her patience when I ask again if she doesn’t remember seeing the man or can tell me anything about his physical demeanor. I observe that he was clutching his chest as he departed; did she notice? Was he limping?
Finally, I ask her about the piece of paper that fell from the man’s pocket, the one with my name on it and the other name—Sandy Vello. Did she see it fall?
She shrugs. “Maybe it’s yours. Maybe it fell out with all the rest of this stuff.”
“Meaning what?”
“Your backpack droppings were everywhere. You’ve got a mishmash of things. You took a pretty good hit to your head. It can shake your sense of reality.”
She smiles, the same compassionate but sad smile she gave the beggar when I first saw her at the turnstile. A beggar in the shadows. I’m about to asking another question, but she turns to go.
I blurt out: “Please take my card, in case you think of anything about that guy. And can I at least have your info, in case I need to follow up?” I tug two business cards from my wallet.
She takes and studies one. It reads: “Nat Idle: By the Word.” She tucks it into her coat pocket. She scribbles something on the back of the other card and hands it back.
“Can I offer you cab fare?” I ask.
“I’m good. Take care of yourself.”
She walks through the turnstiles and into the darkness.
I look at the ten numbers on the card.
Then I look at the scrap of paper I’ve been clutching this entire time, the one with my name and the other one, Sandy Vello.
I don’t recognize the handwriting. It’s certainly not mine. I know this didn’t come from my backpack. Still, am I making more of this than it is? But, if so, isn’t that my stock-in-trade? I’ve built a business and a life pursuing mysteries—little, medium and occasionally big. Just like Isaac, everything is a curiosity to be examined, touched, tasted, understood. I’m a toddler with a pen.
But there’s something else: real anger. I could’ve died.
I indulge myself in that for a bit, but then my thoughts return to someone else. I’m wondering about this Sandy Vello. What if she’s a target too? What if she has a kid, spouse, partner, or general desire to live?
I walk back to the top of the majestic stairs and pull out my phone. It’s a first-generation iPhone, which in these parts makes me a Luddite, joke fodder, recipient of sad looks on public transportation. I call up an Internet browser and finger in Sandy Vello’s name. In the customary minute it takes for the results to load, I watch a man on a bike pedal by, undaunted in the rain, a dog in his back saddle wearing a yellow slicker. Watching makes my knee ache and I wonder when I’ll get back on a basketball court, my thirty-seven-year-old joints and weather permitting.
Google returns its wisdom, 171,000 related web pages’ worth. Big help, Google.
I run the same search but for recent news. I get a hit. Sandy Vello has been in the news lately. Ten days ago, she was hit by a car in Woodside, a suburb in the hills half an hour south of San Francisco. She was killed.
I’m reading an obituary.
What the hell is going on?